What can you do when your child is dumped by friends? It happens. One minute they are friends with a group of girls or maybe just one and then boom, they are dropped – sometimes for no real reason at all. Friendship groups, especially amongst girls, move around a lot. It can be hard to understand why for the child – it can be hard for us as well. Why is our child being replaced by someone else, what did our child do wrong? How can we help our child comprehend what has gone on, how can we help them to also move on and how do we protect their feelings when they have been dumped? A child’s self-esteem can take a bashing when they it is unexpected.
Help Your Child If They Are Dumped By Friends
The best thing to do is to talk to your child about what has happened and see if something triggered the situation. Was there something they remember happening? If so, chat the incident through and talk to them about how they could have done something differently. It won’t change anything but it will make it clearer as to why they were dumped and they can take away valuable learnings from the situation. If they have no idea why they were dropped by their friend ask them if that person fulfilled their friendship needs? What are their friendship needs? What kind of friends do they want to have? Get them to write down on a piece of paper what they are. Your child may then see that perhaps the friend was not the friend they thought they were.
It is very hard for children to move on but the first step is to get them to see that maybe that person was just not right and that there may be other children who are more like them that will appreciate and respect them more.
How have you helped your child when they got dumped?
For more help on friendship issues please see my book, The Parent’s Toolkit.
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